Different states, same results.

As anyone who has taken calls over the phone can tell you there is always at least one area they absolutely dread speaking with. Whether it is because of accent, culture, attitude, or in my case the general lack of intelligent thought in an area, we dread those calls with emotion that borders on obscene. The company I worked for prior to it being sold and restructured to the current company I am with, had a few of those areas. The three worst offenders were Florida, California, and West Virginia. My first call ever was from California, it was during the period of time we call nesting.

For those of you unfamiliar with a call center nesting is the period of time in which freshly trained agents or representatives take inbound calls. In our case this was a few weeks of the training. 1 week of listening to calls for a couple hours, 1 week of taking calls with someone on our side for a couple hours and then the last week before we were assigned to our teams we took calls for seven hours of the 8 hour shift by ourselves.

On the Monday of my last week, I punch into the phone and settle in ready to take my first set of calls, when this one comes in from California.

me = Thank you for calling ISP technical support my name is jacapo, may I please have your phone number with area code first?
cx = *rattles off phone number*
me = Thank you, what can I do for you today?
cx = Yeah, I'm having trouble accessing the Internet, all the lights on the modem deal seem to be normal but I can't connect.
me = I can certainly help you with that. Let me just load your modem's diagnostics and take a look here. *waits for our diag program to load, I get the modem up and see its been online for 127 days solid* Well, I have some good news. Looks like your modem is online, so this should be an easy fix. It shows you are connected to a DLink router. There's probably just a communication problem between them, a simple reboot should take care of that.
cx = alright what do I have to do?
me = Well , go over to your router and look at the back where all the wires are, remove the thin black circular one from the router, and all the lights should go off.
cx = ok, done
me = Thank you, give me a moment and I will reset the modem for you. *hits my big modem reset button, and wait for it to come back online* Looks like the modem has rebooted successfully. You can go ahead and plug that cord back into the router now
cx = ok just a sec. ( I hear things banging around on her end) um... the cord is gone.
me = *o.O??* What do you mean the cord is gone? (I hadn't yet learned to keep my mouth shut with questions I don't want the answer too)
cx = It must have gone through the hole in the wall.
me = Ok, well if you didn't unplug it from the outlet the end of the cable should still be there anchored, you can fish it up through the hole.
cx = No the holes gone now, so's the end of the cord(I hear her walking and doors opening and closing) Shit, this always happens when its least convenient.
me = What happens?
cx = The house eats something I need and then I can't find it for a day or two, then it like shows up.
me = *??o.O??*
cx = So, what do you think I should do?
me = (remember the not having a filter thing? yeah, this one got me in trouble but before I could stop myself the words came out) Ma'am, it sounds like you could use an old priest and a young priest.
cx = Ok. Thanks. Should I call back if I find the cord?
me = *surprised I got away with what I just said* No, you shouldn't have to after you plug the router back in, but if you have any trouble just call back in well help you best we can.
cx = Ok thank you, you have a blessed day.

Now, I thought I was free and clear. I forgot that our trainer was going to be live monitoring calls.... yeah he monitored that one. He came over got me from on the phone and took me back to the training room. He lectured me about how I can't say stuff like that etc etc etc. After his short sermon on what not to do, he then stopped, looked me dead in the eyes and said "but damn that was funny" He then told me how to get away with it and when it was safe to do stuff like that (i.e. make borderline rude comments for my own enjoyment) He also informed me which sups I could get away with it and which I couldn't as well. The information in that little pep talk produced many many funny calls.


I will be sharing these, hope you keep enjoying them and find them humorous